Industrial automation systems are used for monitoring, controlling and regulating technical processes, such as in the field of production and process automation, and allow operation of machines and industrial installations when necessary as autonomously and as independently of human intervention as possible. Due to the continually increasing importance of information technology for automation systems, which comprise numerous networked computer units, methods for the reliable configuration and activation of distributed services for providing monitoring, control and regulation functions are becoming increasingly important.
Consistent with the previous approaches to a solution, configuration data are provided in distributed automation systems by appliance-specific configuration systems and are used for activating a local service. In addition, provision of configuration data is to date followed by immediate activation of the respective local service without further checking. In the case of distributed services whose service components are provided by a plurality of different computer units, uncoordinated configuration and activation of individual systems can cause problematic inconsistencies. Such inconsistencies endanger the error-free provision of a service and have a disadvantageous effect on system stability and availability.